ABSTRACT
This chapter adopts a legal geography approach to understanding the legal and regulatory influences on the argan forest and the argan trade, and also how the uniqueness of the argan forest and argan oil production has received responses within legal regimes as the argan trade booms. First, the chapter explains the usefulness of legal geography for thinking about different scales of regulation - from community and customary law, to state law, to international laws. Second, the chapter examines the evolution of laws relating to space, land and the Arganeraie which has been established under the UNESCO Man and Biosphere Reserve regime. Third, the chapter examines the law-science-knowledge interface with regard to research and development, intellectual property and ‘access and benefit-sharing’ relating to argan products. Last, the chapter examines some of the naming conflicts that have arisen over the use of branding around Moroccan argan oil. It notes that despite efforts to protect the word Argane as a geographical indication, there have remained issues over branding rights in Morocco and overseas for the sale of argan products.
